Bye Bye: Davidson and UNC Greensboro secured first-round byes into the SoCon Tournament as top seeds of the South and North Division, respectively. The last remaining spots will be decided until after Saturday’s finales.

Busted: In BracketBusters, the SoCon split its four games as College of Charleston and Appalachian State scored victories but Davidson and Wofford dropped their respective contests.

Since this edition is the last “Checking In On” for the SoCon before the end of the season, no time seemed more appropriate than now to dole out some hardware (hardware not included).

Coach of the Year: Charlton Young, Georgia Southern: After winning a total of 14 games in his first two years in Statesboro, Young guided the Eagles to a second-place showing in the South Division and achieved the second-biggest win improvement in SoCon history winning 12 league games after winning just one in 2010-11.

Freshman of the Year: Karl Cochran, Wofford: On a Terrier team that faced major overhaul from the past two seasons in which they claimed NCAA Tournament bids, Cochran has paced all SoCon freshmen in scoring (11.0). In addition, he ranks in the top three in rebounding, assists, steals and blocks.

Eric Ferguson Is The RTC Southern Conference Player of the Year (Georgia Southern Athletics)

Player of the Year: Eric Ferguson, Georgia Southern: Ferguson has been at the front of the Eagles’ ascent up the SoCon standings. He ranks in the top six in scoring, rebounding and field-goal percentage. He increased his shooting percentage to 46.2 percent and increased his scoring by almost three points per game.

Power Rankings

Davidson (21-7, Previous Ranking: 1): The Wildcats secured their tenth 20-win season under head coach Bob McKillop and won their eighth division title in the last 12 years. 98 percent of the WildCats’ scoring and 96 percent of their rebounding comes from juniors, sophomores and freshmen.

Wofford (18-12, Previous Ranking: 4): The Terriers extended their streak of 10-conference-win seasons to four after beating Elon on Feb. 15. Wofford improved to 15-1 when leading at halftime. Against UNC Greensboro, Brad Loesing surpassed the 1,000-point mark. Read the rest of this entry »

Taking a Break: On Monday, College of Charleston head coach Bobby Cremins said he was physically exhausted and was advised by his doctors to take “drastic changes or risk jeopardizing his long-term health.” In his absence, Mark Byington has gone 3-2.

Hot ‘Dogs: Samford earned its first-ever win against Davidson, a 77-74 decision on Jan 28, handing the Wildcats their lone SoCon loss of the season … After earning their first ever win against Davidson, the Bulldogs beat Wofford on Saturday for the first time since 1982.

Going Streaking: UNC Greensboro extended its win streak to seven straight before losing to Furman on Saturday. The streak marked the Spartans’ longest since stringing together eight consecutive wins during the 1995-96 season.

From the Notebook

On Saturday, The Citadel head coach Chuck Driesell started Marshall Harris III, Lawrence Miller and Jordan Robertson in their contest against Elon. They became the first three freshmen to start for the Dogs since Jan. 14, 2008.

Davidson has used the same starting lineup (Jake Cohen, De’Mon Brooks, J.P. Kuhlman, Nik Cochran and Tom Droney) in every game.

Since being inserted into the starting lineup eight games ago, Elon’s Jack Isenbarger has averaged 20.5 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 4.4 RPG while shooting 48.5 percent from the floor.

The Citadel’s Mike Groselle has 12 double-doubles this season, tying The Citadel’s single-season record. His 20 career double-doubles are three shy of tying the Bulldogs’ all-time mark.

B.M.O.C.

Andrew Lawrence, College of Charleston: The junior guard from London averaged 28 points in two games last week. He played all 50 minutes in a double overtime contest at Elon in which he scored 32 points, dished out eight assists and shot 10-of-16 from the floor. He followed that performance with a 24-point, seven-assist night in a win at Appalachian State. Combined, he shot 63 percent (17-for-27) from the floor, 64.7 percent on 3-point tries (11-for-17) and missed only one free throw in 12 attempts.

Bob McKillop and Davidson Sit Atop Our Latest Power Rankings (AP)

Power Rankings

Davidson (19-5, Previous Ranking: 1): Despite a three-point loss at Samford, the Wildcats remain atop the power poll as they own a three-game lead in the standings. They pace the SoCon in scoring, scoring margin, rebound margin, free-throw percentage and both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage.

Georgia Southern (12-12, Previous Ranking: 6): Sophomore Jelani Hewitt is averaging 16.2 points per game over last five games and made the game-winning 3-pointer against Chattanooga on Jan. 28. In his first 19 games, he averaged 9.4 points per game. Read the rest of this entry »

While all season-ending injuries are disheartening, the one that has taken Kevin Parrom out for season is especially difficult after all he has had to endure recently. Parrom as you probably remember was shot while visiting his ailing mother in New York City just a short time before she died, which was a few months after his grandmother passed away. Parrom, who had been showing signs of playing like he used to recently, was dealt another setback as he will be out for the rest of the season after breaking his right foot in Arizona‘s two-point loss to Washington on Saturday. Fortunately, based on the way he appears to have handled several much bigger setbacks in his life we expect Parrom to bounce back from this and be a force for the Wildcats next season.

Connecticut got its versatile freshman guard Ryan Boatright back this weekend, but not without more controversy. On Saturday, the NCAA released a statement clearing Boatright to play and also provided a timeline with some of the alleged improper benefits that Boatright and his family reportedly received. The following day while Boatright was playing the attorney representing the Boatright family issued a statement criticizing the NCAA for releasing the information about the alleged improper benefits and threatened the NCAA with legal action. The NCAA then replied with an update to the document (a blue text box in the prior link) that said their previous statement was “factual and in response to numerous public misstatements and the resulting inaccurate reporting by some media”. We are not sure when this will end, but at this point it is beginning to seem petty and would probably be best for both sides to let it fade away rather than trying to get the last word in.

There has been a lot of talk about why there has not been as much interest in college basketball this season after many people expected the sport to have a breakthrough season with several potential lottery picks opting to return to college for at least another season. Many pundits have proposed solutions to fix this, but Dan Wolken’s may be among the most interesting that we have heard. In a column yesterday, Wolken proposed that the start of the college basketball season be moved back to January and the NCAA Tournament start in May. Under this proposal, college basketball would not have to compete with college football and would be finished by the time the NBA Playoffs were in full swing. While some fans and some administrators may find this jarring to their established sensibilities it does make some sense and although it may interfere with college finals, which would only affect Duke students according to Dick Vitale, it could be a generate more season-long interest for many fans. At the very least moving back the season so it does not start at the most important time of the college football season would be a big boost. If January-May is too much for administrators, perhaps a season that starts in December after the college football conference championship games could provide a reasonable compromise.

The streak is over. Mercifully, Towsonended its NCAA Division I-record losing streak at 41 games as it knocked off UNC-Wilmington 66-61 on Saturday. The Tigers, who improved to 1-22 (bubble team status in the Pac-12), were led by 18 points from Marcus Damas. There are quite a few numbers that will give you a sense of just how bad this losing streak was, but we will now turn our attention to Binghamton, which now has the longest losing streak in Division I at a rather pedestrian 22-game losing streak. We are guessing this will be brought up on PTI much to the dismay of Mr. Tony.

Charleston will be without Bobby Cremins for the foreseeable future as the legendary coach has taken an indefinite medical leave of absence to tend to undisclosed medical conditions. Cremins, who has compiled a 579-375 record in his career, is best known for his time at Georgia Tech where he led the school to the 1990 Final Four, but has also made a mark at Charleston where he has gone 125-68 in a little over five and a half seasons and pulled off several memorable upsets over more prominent schools. Cremins will be replaced for the time being by assistant coach Mark Byington. We wish Bobby a speedy recovery from whatever he is dealing with and hope that it is not too serious.